Did Not Finish: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself. One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams. And sometimes he’s not the only one who wants those things.

Ronan is one of the raven boys – a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan’s secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface – changing everything in its wake.

Read to: Page 362 (chapter 51)

Reason for stopping: Lost interest

Review:

This may be the most abrupt turnaround in my opinion in reading history. If you remember (and if you don’t, click here), I loved the first book, The Raven Boys. So much that I went so far to call it my favorite book – and I don’t have favorite books.

It’s really strange – while I was reading The Dream Thieves, I was interested in the story. But at one point, I put it down and then realized I wasn’t super thrilled about picking it back up again. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the story, but it wasn’t begging me to read on. And if I hadn’t recently decided to make some changes to my reading habits, I probably would have finished it.

But anyway.

Ronan, I think, was the main character. I really enjoyed him in The Raven Boys, where he was important, but not majorly important, if that makes sense. He’s a dark, broken guy fighting a lot of demons (sometimes more literally than others). But I think he made a better slightly-less-main character. As the main character, his inner darkness was a little too much for me.

One of the hopes I had for this book was that Blue would get to be a more important character. But that really hadn’t happened by the time I put The Dream Thieves down. It still felt like her main purpose of the story was to add a threat to Gainsey’s life (if she kisses her true love, he’ll die) and to give the raven boys a connection to her psychic family.

Gainsey was my absolute favorite character last book. He was the quirkiest character, and probably not exactly sane, but he had a deep love for his friends and I loved him. I still loved him in The Dream Thieves, but he didn’t get as much page time as he did last book, and that disappointed me.

I liked Adam last book, but he got on my nerves this time around. He was bitter, angry, far too proud, and did something hugely important at the end of The Raven Boys that was messing up his head (I don’t even remember what, which kind of hampered my understanding of some parts). Sometimes he seemed so “woe is me” that I just wanted to scream at him, “get over yourself! You have friends who would be there for you if you opened your eyes and saw that!”

Yeah, plot … it’s actually really similar to The Raven Boys. All these characters want to find Glendower – and this time, somebody is opposing them for unknown reasons. But the characters themselves and their interactions with each other were the main plot. This is exactly what I loved about The Raven Boys, but since I didn’t love the characters as much in The Dream Thieves, it didn’t work as well.

I had two main problems with this book. One was language – Ronan swears a lot. This fits his character really well, but as a matter of personal opinion, I don’t like swearing. The other issue was with Blue’s psychic family. I’m all for psychic powers, but Blue’s family uses tarot cards, scrying pools, and other occult-ish feeling rituals and habits.

This is one of those weird sort of books to review. It’s not like I hated it, or even that it didn’t hold my interest. It just wasn’t fascinating. And I think a lot of the reason I didn’t like it is I’ve changed. If I’d have read it in quick succession with The Raven Boys, I would probably be singing its praises right now.

So if you loved The Raven Boys, I’m sure you’ll love this one just as much. It just wasn’t the book for me.